4 Takeaways From Ryan Blaney’s New Hampshire Win As The Chase Field Takes Shape

Ryan Blaney won for the third time of the year, as he paced the field for 115 of the final 164 laps at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. It was his second win in five races, and it has Blaney feeling good. The NASCAR Chase starts in just two weeks. Only the regular-season finale Saturday at Daytona remains before NASCAR cements its 16-driver field. Thirteen of those drivers are set after New Hampshire, and maybe none were happier than Blaney. He also won at New Hampshire in 2025 but this time, he had to come back from a bad pit stop in the final stage. “It is cool to win here two in a row,” Blaney said in his television interview after the race. Here are my takeaways: 1. Denny Hamlin Wins Regular Season title Denny Hamlin clinched the regular-season title with a seventh-place finish. That means he’ll have a 25-point lead on the second seed and at least a 50-point lead on the majority of the 16-driver Chase field. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver has 64 Cup wins but no Cup title. “I feel good about where our team is right now. Everyone is kind of clicking well and we don’t have a whole lot of weaknesses,” Hamlin said, according to a Toyota news release. “We’re just not as strong as the Penske cars on these types of race tracks.” 2. Chase Field Taking Shape Only seven drivers had clinched spots in the Chase prior to New Hampshire, but six drivers clinched a spot Sunday. Kyle Larson, Joey Logano, Chris Buescher, Carson Hocevar, William Byron and Daniel Suárez don’t have to sweat it at Daytona next weekend. Bubba Wallace has a 75-point cushion on first-driver-out Ryan Preece and needs just two points at Daytona to clinch. Austin Cindric is up by 44 points and Shane van Gisbergen is last on the good side of the bubble at 31 points ahead of Preece. Preece and Brad Keselowski are the only drivers who have a shot of breaking into the top-16 at Daytona. Keselowski (minus-66) would have to win the race and get help to do it. “I’m on offense,” Preece said, according to a Ford news release. “I’m not playing defense, so we’ll go into Daytona swinging and we’ll keep digging.” 3. Blaney Wins Amid Penske Surge Blaney’s victory continues Team Penske’s surge, as it has won four of the last six Cup races. Penske drivers won just once in the first 19 events. But both Blaney and Logano have two wins in the last six weeks. “Everybody in our race shop is really dedicated to getting better if we need to get better [in] places,” Blaney said in his post-race news conference. “We’re really executing at the places where we’ve been really good in the past. Props to them. They’ve been fantastic on figuring out where we need to go.” 4. Wallace, Berry Eyeing First Win Bubba Wallace (second) and Josh Berry (third) both had solid days but could have really used a victory. Wallace still seeks his first win of the year but virtually locked himself into The Chase. Berry led 73 laps and showed that he can produce results as part of the Penske improved performance. Berry, who drives for Penske affiliate Wood Brothers Racing and is 29th in the standings, already knows he is out of a ride at the end of the year. “I’m not doing anything different,” Berry said, according to a Ford news release. “Maybe I was a little rougher today than normal. I don’t necessarily like racing like that, but these guys know what I’m up against right now. I think most of them have a lot of respect for me, so I think they understand.” 4 ½. What’s Next: Daytona Daytona won’t just be the site of the regular-season finale; it will also be the first for a new aerodynamic package with a reduced spoiler and reduced horsepower in hopes of allowing drivers to be less reliant on others to make a move. Whether that encourages more racing and less fuel-mileage strategy remains to be seen. But how it performs will be pivotal in whether NASCAR attempts to make more changes prior to the 2027 Daytona 500.